The benefits of a well prepared plea in mitigation: Careless driving

I appeared in court last week to assist a client who had been charged with section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Initially my client’s position was that they were not responsible for the accident and that it was in fact the other party at fault. Consequently, my client entered a plea of not guilty to the charge libelled and thereafter we were instructed to investigate matters and prepare a defence for the case.

During the course of our investigation we contacted the procurator fiscal to request a copy of all the evidence that they intended to rely on in court. Part of this evidence was the witness statements from all the witnesses involved at the time of the incident.

From this we then carried out our own investigation of the accident site and spoke with our client regarding the evidence. We identified that our client had simply misunderstood the layout of the road at the time of the incident. This meant that, while she was not of the view that she had caused the accident, she was the reason for the collision. Unfortunately for my client while we sympathised with her position the court would likely find her guilty of the offence if all evidence presented was accepted by the court.

Following on from our advice and explanation of the law behind the charge our client accepted her guilt and instructed us to prepare a plea in mitigation on her behalf.

We prepared a detailed plea in mitigation and explained to the court the reasons for the incident. The court advised my client that had she not entered a guilty plea at the stage of proceeding the likely outcome for her post trial would have been either a disqualification for driving or 9 penalty points.

Having factored everything into account the court issued endorsed her licence with 6 penalty points and a fine in the region of £600.

We at Jackson Boyd have many years experience of dealing with motoring offences which means that we can offer you both legal and practical advice throughout your case.